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When ten-foot long cast-iron pipes come flying at you, you don't have much chance to react

Parent Imperfect reports on an incident on South Street in Roslindale yesterday, after he'd dropped his kids off at school:

The salt on the road probably allowed the driver to maintain control of the truck, even though s/he was going too fast. The salt could not, however, keep the load on the truck. In the blink of an eye, ten-foot lengths of 2-inch cast iron pipe were airborne out of the bed of the truck. Before I could even wet my drawers, two of the pipes smashed into the car ...

PI, I'm terribly sorry your feelings were hurt. Fwiw, I did not say that you couldn't go on (and on and on) about the exciting details of your own life, and the profound insights you have about them, on your own blog. I simply asked Adam why he chose to link to it on this, a news site. In my opinion, an almost-accident is not news or even really of general interest - it's something that likely happens a hundred times a day in a city this size. (And btw, Adam, if you have not had a similar close-call during your driving career - yes, I think you can count yourself as lucky).

If we actually knew each other, PI, and you told me the story, I would probably raise my eyebrows and cluck my tongue sympathetically. If you stayed on the topic, I might ask if you had heard about the woman killed on 128 last month by a mattress flying off of a truck (ie, a real news story). If that did not exhaust your capacity to be terribly interested in what had not-quite-happened to you, I might relate my own experience of being run over by a 22-ton garbage truck which completely flattened the front three feet of my car (including the engine block).

I have not assigned myself "chief critic" of Uhub (I suspect Adam, being a true professional, has a lifetime assignment to that position). And I am not in any position to be a censor, as I am neither the government nor Adam's publisher. But I am a regular reader, and someone who holds Adam and his site in very high regard. So I feel perfectly fine asking him about his choices. He's under no obligation to reply, or to change a single punctuation mark.

The fact that he does often reply to our questions and remarks shows the confidence and pride he has in what he does. Precious little narcissistic self-doubt masquerading as outrage in his writing.

PI is not a news site. And Adam doesn't post every single blog post from every local blogger. He's not a mere "aggregator" - he does something more difficult and nuanced - he curates and edits.

I asked Adam a question about an editing choice. Some people seem to have conflated respect and affection for Adam as meaning it's inappropriate to ask questions about what he posts and why. That kind of 'appeal to authority' fallacy seems counter to the apparent philosophy Adam himself pursues.

And my point was not an "appeal to authority". I was pointing it's been Adamg's practice to post stories including stories from this particular blog. Yes, place is not an RSS newsfeed, but it is still an "aggregation". If my memory is correct, he might have used to focus even more on blogs years back.

Meanwhile you seem to be arguing that "this is not news". Well, yeah, but UHub doesn't just repost news from Boston.com with a little commentary.

To catch one of the special T buses to Longwood Avenue. Just like in the Gaffin household (except I've broken down and now drive the kidlet an extra few stops to the Monument)!

OK, OK, the UHub link and shared BLS parent experience was nice, but, really, is having ten-foot-long cast-iron pipes coming at you on a back road in Roslindale a common enough experience that everybody's bored by the idea? If that's not really noteworthy, OK, maybe I just lead too sheltered a life, but that's what I found interesting.

Or where are you driving?
Are you kidding me? Iron pipes of that length and diameter are lethal projectiles. I've been driving for 30+ years and have never seen anything that dangerous coming at me. What I have seen pales in comparison.

I've been driving for 25 years, and apart from the rock that cracked my windshield, I've never actually had my car damaged by an object flying off of someone else's vehicle. Most of my "almost" accidents were just that...almost. The original writer had significant damage to their vehicle, according to the reaction of the cop and the auto body shop. Did you miss that part of the story? Or did you think it was an insignificant event because no one was hurt or killed?

An offhand comment by a cop who couldn't be bothered not to change his plans to go to the dunk's.

A third hand comment from an "auto body guy".

Some people here seem to be to be blowing this story up into something bigger than it is. You're inferring details that weren't reported.

Did the pipe go through his window? No. Did it keep his car from functioning? No. Was he injured? No. Did the police show up right away or even stick around for a few minutes in case the guy came back? No. Did the writer? No. Do we see a picture of this allegedly mind-blowing accident (that didn't actually injure a person or ruin the car)? No.

Miss Modular, that rock that cracked your windshield probably put you as close to peril as that pipe - it's just time (and common-sense) have mitigated the event in your mind.

I'm glad that the blogger wasn't hurt. I'm glad you weren't hurt when your windshield was hit. These two events seem pretty much equivalent - and neither seems to be news.

I asked the editor a question. He answered. That's one of the things that makes this a great news site. I didn't give Adam a directive or a command - what I did was pretty much the same as writing a letter to the editor or the omsbudsman.

You, anon, are of course free to consume whatever you want to as "news" without ever questioning or considering the source or reason. But I choose to ask questions when I see/hear/read something that doesn't add up. If that makes you uncomfortable because of the affection you have for Adam (btw I like him a lot too) then it seems you consider this your personal new feed.

I don't take the T, or use snow buildings on the Comm Ave mall, or have a window air conditioner unit, or compete for space saver-saved spaces either. Different people will find different things relevant or personally interesting. The comment thread further down does include members of the community discussing the incident itself, though said discussion's been overwhelmed by this tangent.

When people don't properly secure any kind of loads onto the backs of their vehicles, whether they be ten feet worth of 2" thick metal pipes, a mattress on top of a car, or furniture, or whatever, or if they don't bother to remove any snow/ice from their vehicles before starting off, they're endangering other drivers, and possibly themselves, as well. The fact that people have been seriously injured or killed as a consequence of such dangerous stupidity indicates that the practice of not properly securing any kind of load(s) onto one's vehicle, or bothering to remove snow/ice from their vehicle beforehand is totally out of bounds and it shows a total disregard for the welfare, well-being and lives of other human beings. Something should be done to put a stop to this. The offenders should be pulled over, heavily fined, or, if they persist and another human being is seriously injured or killed due to an insecure load of whatever, or a vehicle with snow still on it nearby, the offending person should perhaps go to jail for a little while.

Proper loading and securing procedure should be taught as part of driver's ed (or even be a license requirement). I can't count how many times I've seen bad loads go flying even at low speed - always give a loaded vehicle a respectable berth in case something goes wrong. Even during rush hour.

Well, looks like some guy without a conscience got away with causing an accident that killed a woman. A guy posts about almost getting beheaded by a pipe and some other poster wonders why adam bothers posting it.